A `Revolution' Riddled With Petty Politics

WASHINGTON — So this is what the great Republican revolution has come to: No welfare reform. No entitlement reform. No tax cuts. No balanced budget. But, thanks to legislation Republicans have tenaciously insisted upon, if you are HIV positive you will now be kicked out of the military.

Now, there is no disgrace in losing. Republicans made a valiant, if tactically confused, attempt at major welfare-state reform before learning that under the Constitution one cannot govern, let alone run a revolution, from Congress. There is no disgrace in being stopped cold by a president's veto. But there is disgrace in passing some of the petty, petulant legislative crumbs that the Republicans have settled for and that Clinton was prepared to let them have. Of which the HIV purge is a particular disgrace.

In December Clinton vetoed the Republicans' defense authorization bill because of major policy objections. Clinton opposes, for example, the provision for building the first system ever to protect Americans from ballistic missile attack. He also objected to the Republicans' HIV purge.

So what happened? On the big one, the ABM system, the single most important defense issue facing the country in this age of rogue states and nuclear proliferation, the Republicans caved. They sent the president a new defense authorization bill simply leaving it out. But they clung fiercely to the HIV provision. Clinton will now sign, not wanting to block the pay raises, Bosnia funds and other important provisions in the bill. He will work to undo the HIV mischief later.

It is hard to imagine a more mean-spirited and useless provision in any bill. The armed forces carry many other people with chronic conditions like cancer and heart disease that might restrict activities. But they do not force them out of the service.

HIV-positive soldiers are already restricted from combat duty or overseas assignment for reasons of prudence. But there is no reason whatsoever why missile engineers and Navy lawyers and hundreds of others should be forced into retirement because of HIV status.

The return of Magic Johnson to the NBA gives lie to the notion that there is anything inherently debilitating about HIV status before the advent of AIDS itself. Nor is HIV contagious. HIV is not TB. You do not spread it by coughing on someone.

HIV-positive service personnel now to be discharged are by definition in good health. If not, they would already have been discharged like other sick or disabled soldiers.

Like another Republican legislative triumph--shoehorning a ban on embryo research into the continuing resolution that kept the government from shutting down on Jan. 26--this is supposed to demonstrate Republican concern with cultural issues.

Goodness. With rampant crime, epidemic illegitimacy, a polluted popular culture, this is how the Republican Party demonstrates concern with the moral climate of America? By purging the Army of perfectly healthy HIV-positive soldiers and by banning research on days-old fertilized eggs, research with enormous potential for alleviating chronic illnesses?

It is time for the Republicans to stop trying to win these little, belittling victories as a substitute for the real thing. In that same continuing resolution, the Republicans bravely killed the Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native Cultural Arts program. Hurrah. Meanwhile, the big fish, the federal patrons of political correctness--the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts--live on. Some revolution.

Forget it. Forget phony "compromise" and create real issues. Send to the president the Senate's original welfare reform bill, the one that passed 87 to 12. Dare him to veto it. Send him yet another balanced budget with real entitlement reform. Resubmit it to him every month until Election Day. Let him veto everything.

Put the serious issues on the table. Present stark alternatives. Then campaign against the do-nothing president and let the people decide.